Limerence

UK beat-fiddler's production shares plenty in common with Californians Flying Lotus and Daedelus, abounding in left turns and outré sounds.

Jon Pritchard aka Young Montana is a 20 year-old beat-fiddler from Coventry in the UK-- a small city most musically famous for its two-tone ska scene in the 1980s, headed up by the Specials. Although Pritchard's production shares way more in common with Californian beat-makers Flying Lotus and Daedalus, there's a fidgety energy at the core of his debut album, Limerence, that aligns itself with small town boredom and restlessness.

"Sacré Cool" emerged last year and still sounds fresh and vital, with its low-end pumping against a wonky beat culled from Chemise's "She Can't Love You". Pritchard's retooling of that sample is full of left turns as he pulls the beat this way and that, but still keeps enough of a solid centre to nod along to. Indeed, no matter how deeply Young Montana dives into noodly, intricate production on Limerence, there's still a party edge propping things up.

Most of the record drips pretty heavily with the influence of beatmakers like FlyLo, Madlib, and Prefuse 73 but there are some nicely unexpected nods in Pritchard's production too. The start of "Mynnd" errs towards the type of glacial, icy sound of Boards of Canada as analog-sounding synths sprawl on top of each other before being overtaken by typically skronking beat.

With grimey synths and a swarm of exaggerated sounds, "Legwrap" is probably the most uncompromising production on the record. Propelled along by a clattering beat, a collection of outré sounds jostle for attention in the mix. The rattle of drums eventually falls in on itself, giving way to a stark, wobbly synth interlude. It's an example of pretty meticulous beat-mapping and might be a bit alienating if not for a gorgeous end section that Pritchard ushers in out of nowhere. The passage recalls Prefuse 73 at his more playful with a smooth soul sample chopped and spliced with subtle horns and cut-up vocals.

The sudden change in direction at the end of "Legwrap" is something Montana pulls on quite a few of these tracks, lending the whole record the feel of an endlessly tuning radio, flickering from station to station. It adds a kind of broken, wonky dynamic that makes things feel slightly intangible. But occasionally these interludes add an interesting context to beats just at the moment they almost lose steam. Take "Midnight Snacks" for instance, a track that pumps with robotic, destroyed threads and a concealed vocal sample repeating, "Can't take my eyes off you," until late on when Montana flips things again, delivering the sample back to its original old-timey roots.

Moments like that, while not exactly groundbreaking, are nice touches that contribute to the overall sense of careful craft that exemplifies Pritchard's production. While his seamlessly stitched-together beats aren't quite as meticulous or obsessively compulsive as something like Prefuse 73's glitch-hop epic One Word Extinguisher for instance, there's still an impressive attention to detail. His thorough and restless production helps Pritchard transcend the efforts of many other bedroom producers by sheer virtue of his work ethic. Coming from a town like Coventry, one imagines you have to make your own fun, and that's exactly what Young Montana does on Limerence.